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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29422851">Something Else Entirely</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/h00ligan/pseuds/h00ligan'>h00ligan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Torture, Angel True Forms (Supernatural), Angelic Grace (Supernatural), Angst, BAMF Claire Novak, Canon Compliant, Claire Novak Deserves Better, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Claire Novak, Hurt No Comfort, If Supernatural (TV) Were on HBO, POV Claire Novak, Season 9, Torture, mostly - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:47:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,235</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29422851</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/h00ligan/pseuds/h00ligan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Fall, when angels are too weak to need to pay attention to bloodlines, Claire is a commodity: a proven vessel and someone connected to Heaven's most hated no-longer angel. </p><p>To survive, she starts stealing grace.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Something Else Entirely</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Claire <em>heard </em>the Fall before she <em>saw </em>it.</p><p>Panic. Thousands of angels panicking over whatever it was in her mind that the angels used to communicate. Screams, and then a meteor shower. She had been able to hear the angels since Castiel took her body when those years ago. At first, it was too much, too loud, thousands speaking in a foreign tongue she innately understood. She hadn’t been able to hear any of the outside world for a year and a half, baffling all the doctors.</p><p>That was probably why Mom left. It was bad enough to have a husband who disappeared, but to have a deaf daughter, too? She was left with Nana, but Nana died last year, so now she was in the foster system. Her new parents were weird. She didn’t like her new siblings. She didn’t like anything about her new life, and her prayers to Castiel to bring Dad home turned to cursing him out every night. He ruined her life.</p><p>But the Fall. Claire’s new foster parents understood that she was… in the doctor’s words, prone to auditory hallucinations that couldn’t be medicated (they’d certainly tried hard enough). But this, this was far worse than when Castiel had killed the angels who stood with Raphael against him. She told Sara that she had to go for a walk to take care of the voices and excused herself from the dinner table. That’s when she saw the angels falling. It was more terrifying than anything she’d ever felt before.</p><p>She skipped school the next day, tuned in to angel radio to try and piece together what had happened. Castiel betrayed everyone to Metatron. Whatever a Metatron was. He shut the gates to heaven and locked all the angels out, leaving many dead or searching for vessels. Claire shivered at the thought of all the poor people who would be taken over like she was. She remembered it, being twelve and sleeping in the back of Dad’s car, Castiel coming to her in some vague, unknowable form, saying she could protect her father if she said yes, and she did.</p><p>Claire spent hours trapped in her own body. It felt like burning, it was so overwhelming. But she couldn’t feel anything. She couldn’t feel herself being moved, being tied up, her soul itself was locked away, in a little room, burning. Castiel wouldn’t let her out. Until Dad took him back. And when he did, Claire wasn’t the same. Not really, not in any way that mattered. She spent weeks writing in a vague language, unable to make herself write in English. She dreamed in the language, prayed in the language, spoke it, when she was able to speak at all to respond to somebody.</p><p>They had taken her to doctors about the writing patterns and speech, but again, they couldn’t do anything. So, Mom took her to a priest. It horrified her, the way he examined her writing and listened so intently to her screams. He told her it was Enochian, the language of the angels. <em>Castiel, you bastard, look what you did to me</em>, she prayed to him.</p><p>She had managed to bum a cigarette from someone lighting up at a gas station and was about to light it when there was someone behind her. “Sister, what are you doing?”</p><p>Claire turned around and was immediately tempted to run. The man, of course, looked unsuspecting enough, but there was an indescribable form, massive, that the body concealed. “I’m sorry?”</p><p>“I don’t know your name, I’m sorry, I don’t recognize you in this form, I just see your Grace. New bodies are always difficult, are they not?” Her Grace… Castiel had left some of his Grace in her and now it was drawing angels to her. She could see three more in the distance.</p><p>“I’m not an angel.”</p><p>In response, the angel looked closer at her. “No, I suppose you aren’t. You’re so much more than that, aren’t you, my dear girl? You’re a vessel.” He approached her and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Oh, yes, that’s Castiel’s grace inside you. Do you know where he is?”</p><p>“No, I haven’t seen him in four years.” She yanked her arm back from him. Hoping it’d warn him off, she switched to Enochian. “<em>That bastard is the Winchesters’ pet, after all</em>.” She didn’t know what a Winchester was, for a long time. Until she’d seen images of them transmitted over the angel radio. The men who saved her. The men who took Dad away.</p><p>“<em>Hmm, human girl has a gift of tongues,</em>” he replied. “<em>My name is Jofiel, young one. I’m an Angel of the Lord</em>. <em>So many of us are hurt, are without bodies. You, you’re special, aren’t you?</em>” The way he looks at her, looking past her body, into her soul, it made her shiver. “<em>You can hold an angel in you, can’t you? You’ve done it before, held our brother as a child</em>.”</p><p>“And I got nothing but pain for it. I know you need bodies. I know you need my consent to take me.” Her lip curled up. “And I’m sorry, but you’re not going to do that to me again.” Claire would throw a punch, but she knows she would only break her hand against an angel. Instead, she runs. She runs in the direction of the woods, knowing that she’d have no luck, no safety, at the place she called home. Ever since the possession, she’d always been faster than a normal human. Sometimes, she had an odd feeling at her back, like something was carrying her, like her feet didn’t touch the ground. She needed that speed right now.</p><p>Angels were still falling. How many angels were there? How many would find her, how many would be after her? Trying to take her over and make her something she wasn’t, trying to chain her up inside her own mind, make her like her father? Would they take her in her sleep, and she’d wake up to Sara and say coldly, in a monotone, “I am not your daughter,” the way Castiel had with her five years ago? Then, something prodded at her mind.</p><p><em>My name is Ruth, I’m an Angel of the Lord, and I need you. I need you, Claire. You’re so special, and I need you to say yes for me, say yes, and you’ll never have to worry about anything again. </em>It was a strange feeling. It pulled at her… Jofiel called it her Grace, whatever Castiel had left in her, like the opposite ends of a magnet, trying to fill her more.</p><p><em>Been a vessel. Didn’t agree with me</em>. Claire runs through the woods until day turns to night, and on the other end, there are angels. Waiting for her. They’re large, burly men, well-dressed with blank expressions, too still. They don’t blink, they don’t breathe, their eyes react reflexively to the presence of her Grace. She could tell they were angels even before she could see their true forms, she noticed the behaviors, of some larger-than-life creature pulling the strings of a being they didn’t understand. They felt like robots, like adults who were invited by children to have a tea party.</p><p>They grab her arms and shove her into the back of a car, one on either side, making it near impossible for her to move. She wants to call Sara, but she doesn’t have her phone number. She wants to scream and make a fuss, but nobody in rural Illinois cared about a young woman being pushed around by men. They wouldn’t want to get involved. “<em>How did you find me?</em>” She asks, in Enochian.</p><p>“<em>We thought you were Castiel, young one—ah, Claire, is it? Your father asks about you oh so often.”</em></p><p>“<em>My father isn’t Castiel.”</em></p><p>The one to her left smiles as the car starts. <em>“If you were a Nephil, we’d know. You’re not one of those abominations. We mean your earthly father. James</em>. <em>Always so concerned for you. ‘Where’s Amelia? Where’s Claire?’ We try to make a good heaven for him, but always so ungrateful.</em>” In Heaven. He’s… dead. Her father is dead, because of Castiel. “<em>Either way, you have Castiel’s grace, so we thought you were him, so we could make him pay for the fall. But this… is a much more interesting find. A proven vessel. A word of advice, young one. If you can hear </em>us<em>, we can hear </em>you<em>.”</em></p><p>“<em>I can’t turn it off.</em>”</p><p>“<em>Yes, unfortunately, we don’t precisely have experience in vessels as young as yours actually surviving the process. Aside from that girl two thousand years ago in Judea… but she was part of a plan, she was built for her purpose, to be used at that age</em>.<em> You…</em>” he looked into her eyes, and there was the tug again, the magnetic pull that must be her Grace trying to get out or take more. <em>“Were just another true vessel. Castiel wasn’t even supposed to be on earth for this long. And as for what was supposed to happen to you, well… true vessels are more meant for the angel’s comfort than the human’s. You were supposed to burn away. Not be… whatever you are. Not quite human, not quite angel, certainly not a Nephil. Something… entirely wrong otherwise.”</em></p><p>It was far from the first time that Claire had been called an abomination. It shouldn’t faze her, but even still. “<em>Maybe you shouldn’t have let me live, then.</em>”</p><p>“<em>You misunderstand. You… you can serve a purpose. All of this,” </em>he gestures outside, “<em>Is because of your Castiel. And he will come to save you if you’re in danger.</em>”</p><p>“<em>Chasan,</em>” the driver says, and Claire just now notices the angel. Gaunt, with a scraggly beard, but something intense about him that made her stomach tighten. “<em>You’re scaring our guest. And she won’t help if she’s scared, will you, Claire?</em>” She only glared at him from the rear-view mirror. “<em>Our tongue is your tongue now, isn’t it? You dream in this language, you write in it, you speak it, but you don’t remember where you learned it.</em>”</p><p>“<em>I remember being possessed, and I remember having to learn English again after. And I won’t let it happen to me again.</em>”</p><p>The man <em>tsked</em> as he turned off the highway. “<em>You have to forgive Chasan. He doesn’t know the humans. I’m Malachi. Now, you don’t have to get possessed. My vessel, I know only too well his pain. But it would make things so much easier if you could bring Castiel to us.</em>”</p><p>“<em>I told you, I haven’t seen Castiel since he possessed me. I prayed to him for years, never got anything out of it. He doesn’t care. And I won’t give you my consent. So, you can just let me go.</em>” That was the last thing Claire remembered saying before Chasan put his palm to her forehead and she fell asleep.</p>
<hr/><p>When Claire woke up, she was freshly cleaned, hair taken out of its usual braids and brushed out and put into a pantsuit. And there were handcuffs on her wrists, attaching her to a chair where she could only assume was the base of wherever Malachi worked out of. “Ah, you’re awake,” an angel said, he was in a body only a few years older than her. She could only think of some poor college student’s life essence burning away.</p><p>Instead, she turns her head away. It’s too early to look at an angel, it starts to hurt her head. He turned her head instead to look at him. “My dear sister,” he whispered. “We need your prayers. We need Castiel on our trail, and then we’ll let you go.”</p><p>“Bullshit. If you were going to let me go you wouldn’t dress me up like I was about to get turned into a meatsuit. And I told you, Castiel doesn’t <em>hear</em> them. I tried for five years, five years for him to save me. And he never came. You think he’ll come now, with no power? How stupid do you think he is?” she lowered her voice, slipping into Enochian. “<em>I saw what he did in heaven. Tell me, did you repent and beg his forgiveness, or did you fight against Raphael and watch your new god slaughter hundreds of your kind?</em>” she switched back to English. “I have no love in my heart for Castiel, and I mean nothing to him. His first words in his vessel were telling me <em>I am not your father</em>. He won’t come for me.”</p><p>“Are you saying that because you truly believe that, or are you saying that because you don’t want to watch your father’s body get destroyed?” a lump formed in her throat, and she looked away. “Your father, he was killed by Lucifer three years ago. Whatever Castiel walks around in now, that’s not your father.”</p><p>“Is he in Heaven?” she asked quietly.</p><p>“Anyone who consents to an angel taking them goes to Heaven, sister. It’s the greatest favor one could do for the Father. “Anahel, she’d treat you with kindness.”</p><p>“No, she wouldn’t.” her lip quirked up. “<em>I have Grace. You wouldn’t put any angel in me, you’d want a useful one. And I will never let myself be taken again</em>.”</p><p>He sighed. “We try to reason with you. You humans, you’re all so… stubborn. Do you know what you are? Even in our weakened form, you’re ants. You’re nothing. You’re papier-mache that God let himself get attached to. I could tear you up and put you back together until you say yes. Being an angel doesn’t make us good.”</p><p>“I said. Bite me.”</p><p>“It’s best if the prayers of desperation are genuine anyway.” Out of his sleeve, a slim sword emerges.</p>
<hr/><p>Claire doesn’t know how long she’s been chained against the wall as some angel takes a knife to her. Slowly, her wounds heal on their own, after the angel leaves at what she can only assume is the end of the day. Angels don’t have to sleep, but they have to let her sleep. She knows angels come easiest in dreams. “<em>Castiel</em>,” she calls out, voice raw from her screams. “<em>Please, please help me. They’re… they’re torturing me. You promised I’d stay safe, you bastard!</em>” her body is wracked by a series of coughs that launch her forward, and the chains rub more against her wrists. She’s an ant. She’s an ant, irrelevant. The only way she could get out is… her wounds close, the slightest bit of light escaping them.  She’d been confused for an angel before. Only angels typically heard what was described as angel radio. “<em>My name is Ruth. I’ve been taken by Malachi. Please help. They’re going to kill me.</em>”</p><p>“<em>Ruth, this is Tyrus. We’re on our way</em>.”</p><p>She almost sobbed with relief when an angel burst in. “You little human <em>bitch</em>. Do you know what you just did? You just brought a faction on our doorstep.”</p><p>Claire spit blood in the angel’s face. “<em>This little human bitch is going to get out, and when I do, I’ll remember your face. Your real face.</em>”</p><p>He looked her up and down. “Well, it looks like you’re well enough to see if we can’t still persuade you, huh?” he drew his sword up near her shoulder, and he got close enough for Claire to <em>bite</em>, with all she had, had enough to break skin. White light shone through, and she inhaled some of it, amazed by how it felt. The wound closed too quickly for her to get much more than one breath, but it was enough to wake her up, fix the tattered clothes she wore. “You human <em>whore</em>,” he cursed. Claire’s heart hammered in her ears.</p><p>Was this what it was like to be an angel?</p><p>He cut her for that. Cut her slow, while pain once more blossomed across her body. She lost track of time again, there was at least one shift change, and they put a gag on her. She kept crying for Castiel. Castiel still didn’t answer. And then, a door kicked in. She thought for a moment, Castiel had finally heard her prayers. Except it wasn’t him, it was another angel. She didn’t bother looking at the vessels anymore. It hurt her too much to think of the people suffering inside, who’d never get their lives back, who were as good as dead, except death would be less painful.</p><p>“Ruth?” the angel asked, and she nodded, desperately. “I’m Tyrus.” He cut the chains and took out the gag, carrying her to a car. It wasn’t until she was in the back seat when he looked at her, <em>really </em>looked at her. “You’re not Ruth.” It wasn’t a question.</p><p>She shook her head; it was the least she owed to the man who’d just saved her life. “<em>I’m sorry. I’m a human, they took me, tried to torture me into consenting</em>.”</p><p>“<em>You speak Enochian?</em>”</p><p>“<em>Castiel took me as a vessel when I was a child. It was only a few hours, but when it was over, it was all I could speak for a long time. I heard the angels.</em>” He looked at her with pity in his eyes.</p><p>“<em>You’re still a child. Why would they do this?</em>”</p><p>“<em>They want Castiel. They think he’d come for me because I’m his vessel’s daughter, because I used to be his vessel</em>.”</p><p>“<em>He left some Grace inside you, didn’t he? That’s why we thought you were one of us</em>.” She nodded again. He shifted the car into drive. “<em>You need to recover</em>.”</p><p>“<em>Why are you doing this?</em>” she tried to do whatever her body did after her torturers had left the room for the night, tried to make her wounds close. Tyrus sighed and pulled over while an angel from another car hopped in and started healing her.</p><p>“<em>You don’t have enough grace to make yourself heal the way you want to.</em>” He started driving again. “<em>My faction, we love the humans. When Castiel gave us free will, we tried to make what we could of it, and it’s so much easier on Earth. Father loved you most for a reason, even if Castiel is… flawed.</em>”</p><p>“<em>I know what he did to Heaven. He means nothing to me. You don’t have to be delicate about him for my sake, he killed my father.</em>”</p><p>“<em>I’m delicate about him because you’re a child, who I can only assume has been able to hear every matter of heaven for years.</em>” The last wound healed, and so did her clothes, so Claire shoved the angel off her. “<em>There are so many of us without vessels that if someone has been proven to be one, even so young, it’s a rare resource. We will not subject a human to this, we know the pain. And we are far too weak.</em>” He turned around in the seat. “<em>Do you understand me? If you consent, you can withdraw it at any time, and we cannot fight you on that. You have more grace in your body right now than some angels have left. And you know how to steal it.</em>”</p><p>“<em>Why are you telling me this?</em>”</p><p>“<em>It won’t be long until Metatron’s faction learns we’re protecting you. We cannot fight them; we were never the warriors. And whatever Malachi did to you, Metatron will do far worse.</em>”</p><p>“<em>You’re going to give me up to the one who started this.</em>” Suddenly, Claire wants to throw herself out of the car, wants to run home. But she doesn’t even know where she is.</p><p>“<em>We can’t look like we’re harboring someone connected to Castiel, Claire. We’re neutral in this, we don’t want to go home. If you can’t escape with the grace you manage to steal, you pray to Hannah. If you cut an angel, we will bleed grace.</em>”</p><p>“<em>Yeah, I noticed that.</em>” The angel’s blood still tasted fresh in her tongue; the grace she’d stolen still thrummed through her veins.</p><p>“<em>Can I put you to sleep? You still need your rest; you haven’t slept in weeks.</em>” The angel beside her spoke, with the same gentle voice as Tyrus.</p><p>“Weeks?” she finally managed, in English. It was hard to speak it as it was, even harder in the presence of the angels. But it shocked her enough to manage the one word. Measures of time didn’t feel real in Enochian, not the way they did in a mortal tongue.</p><p>“Almost a month,” he confirmed.</p><p>Her bones certainly felt like they’d been chained up for a month. So, she nodded, and let the palm of the angel press to her head, guiding her into a deep and dreamless sleep.</p>
<hr/><p>Claire managed to stay with Tyrus for about a week before anything happened. The angels seemed a bit too obsessive, if anything, with keeping Claire’s health up. They brought her five small meals a day, mostly produce based with as much water as she wanted, a serving of meat twice a day and a helping of dairy once. Practically mandated to sleep ten hours every night and helping her with whatever schoolwork they felt a sixteen-year-old should know.</p><p>It would be nice, except for how everyone questioned her, with those odd, unblinking eyes, unmoving chests. They wanted to know what it was like to sleep as a human. They wanted to know what her food tasted like. When she offered them food, they’d graciously take it and then make a face as though it disgusted them. They wanted to know what it was like to be a child, what it was like to have her wisdom teeth removed, what it was like to have all too human injuries that were all too normal.</p><p>These angels weren’t like Castiel in the slightest. They were like curious children who would heal her every time she stubbed her toe, try out whatever curse word in English she let out when she tripped or when someone surprised her, saying things like “Son of a fuck” of “Godshit”. It was strange because these angels… genuinely felt like they wanted to experience humanity. They would laugh at her jokes in English that were crudely translated to Enochian though the punchline was lost. In return, they would tell jokes in English translated from Enochian that made no sense.</p><p>Claire realized the reason Tyrus still took her in when he realized she wasn’t an angel, and it wasn’t so they’d want her to be a host, but instead so that they could learn to be human up close, with someone who wasn’t quite human but close enough anyway.</p><p>Over that week, more people seemed to join Tyrus. He said it was because more angels were learning to love humanity. So, there were more angels watching her like curious children watching a puppy. She was used to the looks by then. She even managed to make some friends, tell them about the man her father was, tell them that humans would use their faith to hate people like Claire. Not because she was somewhere between human and angel, but because she would love other girls, kiss them in the dressing room after softball was done, hold each other tight during scary movies, let her cry into their shoulders when she woke up missing her parents or Nana. It turned out that the angels didn’t much care who humans loved. Just that they did, and it was beautiful.</p><p>And then Metatron’s angels came. She knew Tyrus’ angels wouldn’t put up a fight. She knew it was part of the deal of them protecting her, that they would surrender her once they got onto her trail. She didn’t consider it a betrayal, really, as she was dragged away by an angel who slung her over his shoulder, blindfolded her, and knocked her out with a touch.</p>
<hr/><p>Metatron’s soldiers were, as promised, far less forgiving than Malachi’s. Claire was once more prepared in the clothing of a vessel. She was chained to a wall once more. “All you have to do is pray to Castiel and this will all stop,” the angel said. But this… wasn’t Metatron. Not that she could tell, anyway.</p><p>“I’ve prayed to Castiel every day since he took my father and he’s never once, <em>never</em>, answered a single goddamn one. Not even with a good sleep. I told Malachi’s stooge that, too.”</p><p>“Well then… all you have to do… is say yes. I would say we’d feed you, but… you wouldn’t need to eat anymore.”</p><p>It was so much… so much, and Claire couldn’t hold back the sobs anymore. Not like this, deprived of sleep and eyes tearing up and nose bleeding from seeing the angel’s true form because she wasn’t allowed to look away. Still, she shook her head. “I’m not letting that happen to me again.”</p><p>“You don’t understand. We <em>need</em> you. <em>Gatriel</em> needs you. Yet you <em>stupid, insolent </em>humans! You think your comfort is more important than the edicts of Heaven itself!”</p><p>She sighed and leaned forward as far as the chains would let her in order to give her legs the rest they so sorely needed. She remembered Tyrus’ words. They weren’t strong enough to stay in her any longer than she allowed them in. So, she closed her eyes. <em>I’m so sorry, Dad. I’m sorry, Castiel. Hannah, please forgive me, come get me</em>. And she lowered her head. “Fine. I consent to Gatriel taking my body as her own.”</p><p>The sense of power that immediately filled Claire was indescribable. Not quite as massive as Castiel at the height of his power, but still large. Still, an alien form poking at her consciousness and filling her body up, immediately repairing it, fixing the torn pantsuit and slashes and broken bones. Gatriel’s grace attached itself to Claire’s like a magnet, but she knew the fight was only just beginning. Distantly, she felt the shackles unlock. <em>Free, again</em>. She could almost cry. Still, she looked at the angel with eyes that were partly her own while Gatriel fought to take control.</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Usually, I wouldn’t be one for sloppy seconds, but Castiel did such a good job preparing you, I’d have to thank him.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p>“<em>Gatriel</em>,” the angel greeted, and she stood, all soreness, hunger, and tiredness gone.</p><p>“<em>Jael. About time you got me a body.</em>” She tilted her head. “<em>Some teenaged degenerate wouldn’t be my first choice, but if that’s what you were offering…</em>”</p><p>Claire lunged at Gatriel’s consciousness for that. “<em>Far too much of an attitude on this one. What happened to the good old days where the insects knew to bow?</em>”</p><p>“<em>It’s been so long. The faithful aren’t quite as widespread anymore. Hannah’s faction is on the move, we need you to remind them of what happens to people who still defy Metatron.</em>”</p><p>“<em>You spend six weeks cracking this whore and immediately send me off? This body is injured.</em>”</p><p>“<em>And you have enough grace left to fix it. So, move.</em>” Gatriel nodded at Jael and left the compound, getting into a car.</p><p>
  <em>Fuck off. You don’t have my consent anymore. Get out.</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Oh, the little abomination thinks she can get rid of me.</em>
  </strong>
</p><p><em>I know I can, and I’m telling you, </em>she pushed herself to the front of her mind, temporarily taking over her body. “<em>Get. Out.”</em> It takes minutes, almost an hour of her consciousness fighting Gatriel, but at the end of it, she’s still too new in the body. She can kick her out, but it’s too close of a call.</p><p>On the other hand, once Gatriel leaves, her senses are heightened, she feels new strength course through her veins. Gatriel may be gone, but she left a little bit of grace behind. All that was left was to go home and pray to Hannah.</p>
<hr/><p>Claire goes back to Sara, but after disappearing for more than two months, she’s not wanted there anymore. That is to say, the state of Illinois thinks she’s too much of a flight risk to have, and she by default dropped out of school because she hasn’t been to classes since the Fall happened. So, she’s put in a group home, one for flight risks. On one hand, she’s grateful. Angels won’t want to take on the entire state and risk an Amber Alert for just one vessel, just one chance at reaching Castiel which hadn’t worked.</p><p>She does get her own room, though. Her being a flight risk is overtaken by her auditory hallucinations and psychotic episodes. That’s what they call it. It’s what the state calls it because they don’t believe that something possessed her when she was twelve, not in the metaphysical sense, anyway. She goes to trauma counseling for victims of sexual assault, trying to help her realize that what she says about her body being invaded by an alien being was, in fact, more literal.</p><p>She still gets angels knocking at her consciousness, too. It’s strange, that all these months later, angels are still looking for bodies, thinking they’ll take over someone who can’t leave, but a body stuck in the system for a year and a half more is still a body. She keeps track of their names when she first lets them in, after all, it’s the least she can do for the winged freaks. There’s Agil. Hyeth. Humiel. Hecca. Dahlia. Morael. The first few, it’s a real struggle for the consciousness, battles that leave her screaming in her room for hours, that almost send her to the psych ward at the hospital. Nireah does. But, every time, she wins, taking a little bit of grace as a prize.</p><p>There’s another girl in her room, now. Another troubled girl who sees things. Her name is Hannah, but obviously not Castiel’s Hannah.</p><p>“What are you in for?” Hannah asks, as she picks at the frayed ends of her jeans. They’d cohabitated for days, but they hadn’t said a word to each other. Except now, there’s a power outage and a thunderstorm, and they’re locked in the room together.</p><p>She shrugged. “Religious hallucinations. My dad was possessed by an angel when I was eleven, he walked out. The angel took me almost a year later, for a few hours. When he left, I could hear things. Other angels. The angels Fell four months ago, that’s what that meteor shower was. And they kidnapped me. You?”</p><p>She tapped her head. “Bipolar, heavy on the manic episodes. Gotta say, a little bit boring compared to your little bible horror story, though.”</p><p>Claire curled up against the wall. “It’s not a story.” Just then, lightning struck three, four, five times, and Hannah backed up against her side of the room in fear. She wondered what the big deal was, but in the full-length mirror attached to the door on the other side of the room, she saw.</p><p>The shadows of wings. Sparse, crooked, like they didn’t belong on her. But wings. Claire smiled a little. Taking grace did have a bit of an upside, after all. If she could focus her eyes, just so, she saw what they looked like, not just the shadows. Dozens of colors. Dozens of colors that didn’t fit together because they were never meant to, because they were dozens of graces sewn together by a human soul, and the most recognizable, were the oil-slick black of Castiel.</p><p>“Believe me now?”</p>
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